Tudeh

Tudeh ("masses") is an Iranian communist party, founded in 1941. The party supported Mohammed Mosaddegh's campaign to nationalize the Anglo-Persian Oil Company during the early 1950s, but the party was destroyed after the US and UK-backed 1953 coup against Mosaddegh's government. The party was one of the most vocal opposition parties during the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, but its members would be interned after mass arrests by the Islamist government in 1982, and thousands of suspected communists were executed in prison in 1988 in response to the People's Mujahideen of Iran's invasion of Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. The party is currently operating underground in Iran, and its leaders are currently in exile.